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Saturday, January 31, 2015

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

BEST SERVED COLDJoe Abercrombie2009 Gollancz

reviewed by carol★ ★ ★ ★

AKA “Abercrombie and the Ultimate
Anti-Heroes.”Here’s the short review: reading Best Served Cold is like
being a guest judge on ‘Iron Chef America: Sardines.’ Sure, there’s some incredible stuff happening–but still… it’s sardines. And would you really want to eat like that every day?

The long review: What’s good? The
writing, the world, the character description, the brilliant way
Abercrombie links and weaves so many plots together, both large and
small, and the tension he is able to build through the story even when
the general outline is known (“seven deaths”). There were times I found
myself saying, “now that was a fabulous sentence/paragraph/plot twist,”
but I couldn’t tear myself away from reading long enough to take down a
note or two. So we will all have to remain unsure which particular
points struck me; what I remember is that they were there and there was
more than one. One notable narrative device used to brilliant effect is
in memory segments in the beginning of some chapters. The memory gives
context an earlier event we’ve already heard rumors about or how it has
given rise to particular actions. It results in a neat little bite of
background to the rumors, character insight and world history. Overall,
he achieves that rare writer’s groove where the reader stops to marvel,
but not long enough to disengage from the story.

The bad? Well, while it’s not done badly,
truly none of the characters are very likeable. Caught in webs of their
own weaving, and victims of their own pursuits, no one is very
sympathetic. These are well-created characters that occasionally
navigate their challenges with grace, and always with fortitude, but
most often just use determination and brutality. If you’ve read The
First Law series, and Abercrombie is hoping you have (as more than a few
characters have first made appearances there), the main character,
Monza, “The Butcher,” suffers overmuch from similarity to Inspector
Glotka. The frequent references to her physical discomforts sounded a
great deal like the words used to describe him, and I found myself
feeling like a significant amount of her character-building was poached
from him. Abercrombie writes that part of his personal challengewith this book was writing a lead female character, and perhaps because of Glokta, I just feel like he didn’t quite succeed.

Four stars for literary excellence, but
the brutality and lack of truly heroic characters will keep me from
adding to my personal collection, and prevent me awarding full five-star
awesomeness rating.

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